Roughly for the past quarter me and my business partner were doing the Business Venture Competition here at UCSB. For the most part every Tuesday we met with the organizers of the event and had discussions on various topics such as legal issues, marketing, finance, etc. We had access to ‘mentors’ who aided us with questions and gave input on our “idea”. The executive summary was due during spring break, and unfortunately we didn’t make it on to the next round.
I thought our executive summary was good and thought it explained exactly what we wanted to do. However, during my spring break my brother and I took a trip to San Jose to speak to our Uncles boss – President and CEO, Larry Clark from a Technology Credit Corporation. We had sent our executive summary ahead of time, and Larry had read through it before we arrived. What I wish I knew now before the executive summary was due for the Venture Competition was to communicate our ‘idea’ better. Larry Clark being an angle investor transitioning into a venture capitalist, didn’t really comprehend what our idea was. Well, he knew what we wanted to do, but didn’t get the competitive advantage; or to say, what we were fixing in the market that no one else was doing. Not being selected to move on in the venture competition, I have come to a realization that is probably due to poor communication.
When speaking to Larry, I probably (not exaggerating) have learned more from that hour and half than I have from school or any mentor I have spoken to during our meetings here at UCSB. Where our failure to communicate happened, was that what we are offering is going to get rid of something which all our competitors have, that no one wants. At the time, our business model had three aspects to it, first the service we were offering and second, a private escrow system, and third the thing we were preventing. What Larry got out of the summary was that we wanted to compete against other escrow systems. This was very far from what we were trying to communicate. He thought our “competitive advantage” was creating this escrow system and began to criticize our intentions because there were already many escrow systems out there. This scared me because I knew if he was an angle investor then all venture capitalist judging our summary at UCSB would probably read it the same way as him (which is bad).
In the end I now realize I need to make sure the main point of whatever you are trying to do is the one emphasized the most so that there will be no errors in comprehending what you are trying to do. This is the one thing that hurt us the most. However My brother, Max, and I are still going to concentrate on starting this business. We are going to get together a business plan and pitch it to our Dad’s business partner to see if we can get any funding to get our feet off the ground. Even if you fail, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a good idea. It just means something went wrong whether it be miss communication or pitching to the wrong investor. What I’ve learned is that there is money (investors) out there for anyone and everyone most of the time if you have a good idea.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
